Top 5 things to do this May Bank Holiday

It may be tempting to spend your long weekend on the sofa. However, B Public Relations have other ideas and have rounded up the top 5 things you can’t miss out on this May Bank Holiday Weekend.

Hampton Court Palace Big Picnic

Spend quality family time lazing around the beautiful gardens of Hampton Court Palace for a day of live entertainment, family craft activities on the Palace’s East Front Gardens and games, including hands-on activities inspired by the gruesome stories brought to life in Lucy Worsley’s TV series ‘Fit to Rule: How Royal Illness Changed History’.

This exhibition of work by 14 renowned and emerging contemporary artists marks the 10th anniversary of the Museum of London Dockland with pieces inspired by the outer limits of the river Thames, where the river pours into the sea. Among the artworks, which include a broad range of media such as film, photography, painting and printmaking, are pieces by Jock McFadyen, Gayle Chong Kwan, Bow Gamelan Ensemble and Christiane Baumgartner.

The annual festival held at the Southbank Centre in Belvedere, brings together international, world class poets, authors and speakers representing the spectrum of creative disciplines for more than a week of talks and events. Literary heavyweights including icons such as Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, Barbara Kingsolver, Audrey Niffenegger, Lionel Shriver, James Salter and William Dalrymple are presented and read out during a series of lectures presented by celebrated biographer Claire Tomalin. Luminaries from other areas of arts and culture, including actor Rupert Everett, fine artists Gavin Turk and Cornelia Parker, designer Tom Dixon and musicians Jarvis Cocker and Ute Lemper – the latter singing Pablo Neruda’s love poems.

Berlin-born Dada artist turned fashion photographer – Erwin Blumenfeld became a leader in his field when he moved to New York in the 1940s. It was here Cecil Beaton introduced him to American Vogue, and where he went on to become one of the magazine’s most prolific photographers, snapping more front covers than any photographer before or since. This exhibition of more than 100 works homes in on the decades he spent in the city, and celebrates his pioneering ability to elevate fashion to art.

This year Kew’s summer festival highlights the extraordinary diversity of edible plants at the Royal Botanic Gardens. The centrepiece – ‘Tutti Frutti’ – is the work of architectural foodsmiths Bompas & Parr. The pair have come up with another of their trademark bonkers concepts: a giant ‘fruit salad’ boating lake complete with a floating pineapple island. Tickets are available from the kisok by the pond and all the boats have been designed to look like slices of papaya, melon, durian or pear. The Global Garden, on the Great Lawn opposite Kew Palace, features more than 90 edible plants from around the globe – including grape vines and pomegranate and olive trees – along with stories about their origins and cultural heritage.